Mission lifetimes for pulse powered devices, such as gravity bomb fuzes, are limited by the voltage, current, and duration of the host platform power pulse. Existing pulse energy capture circuits transfer pulse energy into storage capacitors. However, the theoretical limit of energy captured by the existing capacitor-only pulse energy capture circuits is only 50% of the energy available to be captured, as shown below:
Ecaptured=½CV2, the energy captured by a capacitor, where C is the value of the capacitor's capacitance, and V is the voltage across the capacitor.
Eavailable=V*I*t, the energy available to be stored, where I is the value of the current flowing, and t is the time duration of the current pulse.
I=C(dV/dt), the current through the capacitor, where dV/dt is the rate of change of voltage across the capacitor, so solving for C and looking at a fixed increment of time,
C=(I/V)*t, therefore substituting this result into the Ecaptured equation above results in
Ecaptured=½V*I*t, therefore
Ecaptured=½Eavailable 
Of course, while it is theoretically possible to capture 50% of the energy available, in reality only about 39% of the energy is actually captured, due to normal losses in the circuit.
Electronic Safe-and-Arm Devices (ESAD), the most reliable type of bomb fuze, require at least twice the energy of conventional out-of-line fuze components. Therefore, a need exists for a circuit technique that increases the amount of energy captured above the 50% efficiency barrier in pulse power bomb fuzes.
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Without limiting the scope of the invention, a brief summary of some of the claimed embodiments of the invention is set forth below. Additional details of the summarized embodiments of the invention and/or additional embodiments of the invention may be found in the Detailed Description of the Invention below.
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